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Oct 29 2019

On Writing: Why Mastery Should Matter to the Serious Author

Craft classes and grammar lessons aside, reading helps fill our toolbox. We are artisans, crafting people, places, worlds, and concepts with combinations of twenty-six letters. Would you trust someone to build your house who only owned (and knew how to use) a hammer and saw? Or a doctor who only knew how to wield a scalpel, but skipped learning how to suture?
Yet how many writers are publishing books and they don’t even possess the basic fundamentals of our craft? And are more concerned with a new marketing plan then why people don’t WANT to read their work, let alone PAY to read it?

Oct 09 2019

Finding Our WHY: The Beating Heart That Keeps Our Muse ALIVE

Seasons change and so do we. Finding our why is something we should do regularly, because, if we’re operating off a motivation that’s older than our favorite yoga pants? It might be the reason we’re burned out and hate turning on our computers.

Sep 30 2019

Do Some People Lack the Talent to be a Successful Author?

Stephen King equates talent to a vein of gold in a mine. One has to do the hard work of digging for the ore, refining, etc. (the nasty work most people don’t want to do). He says if you spend an hour and a half a day writing for ten years, at the end of ten years, you’ll be a pretty good writer. Just as if you spent an hour and a half a day digging, mining, and refining ore, you’d eventually have decent stockpile of gold.

Sep 27 2019

Motive: The Key to Writing Stories Readers Can’t Put Down

Motivation points out where a character is most likely to trip, but also highlights the direction the character needs to grow. It’s this additional psychological layering that can make even a simple story deceptively complex. Like stepping into a puddle and falling into the center of the Earth.

Sep 23 2019

Characters: Audiences Read Stories, but Great Stories Read the Audience

Characters are critical for stories that resonate. Why? Because characters are the conduit that connects the reader, that vests them in the events. We can’t empathize with technology, spaceships, magic, or nuclear submarines. Humans can’t bond emotionally to a place (without the characters as the connection). For instance, we CARE about Lord of the Rings’ …

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